5 Tips for Furniture Storage

Storing a piece of furniture tends to be sit somewhere around the middle of the difficulty scale when it comes to proper storage. It isn’t as difficult as soundly storing a car, but it also isn’t as easy as putting a bunch of toys and random home goods in storage unit. Furniture storage requires you to take a few extra steps to make sure that your items look just as good coming out as they did going in. Listed below are several furniture storage tips to help you:

1. Rent a climate-controlled unit

Climate-controlled storage units help regulate the temperature in a unit. If you live in an area prone to extreme changes in temperature, I highly recommend you rent a unit with this feature. Changes in temperature can lead to warped and damaged furniture. The changes in temperature often lead to moisture build up and everybody knows that moisture and storage don’t mix.

Protect your furniture when storing it so it retains its quality. (CandyBox Images/Shutterstock.com)

2. Measure, measure, measure

Renting the right size unit is crucial. You don’t want to waste money by renting a unit that is too large and you don’t want to run out of space either. Also, you’ll want to make sure your item can fit through the door of a unit. Let’s say all you want to store is a sofa so you rent a small unit. Make sure the door’s opening can accommodate the size of the sofa even if the inside of it can. Measure your pieces carefully to have a better idea of size needs.

3. Protect the corners first

The corners of furniture often fall victim to damage first. Wrap the corners of furniture in bubble wrap, fabric, or cardboard to keep them safe.

4. Protect the rest of the piece

Wrap furniture in drop cloths to ward off scratches and dirt. Plastic covers are an option, but plastic doesn’t breathe as well as fabric so moisture potentially can be trapped inside and cause damage. On the flip side, cloth wouldn’t protect a piece from a random leak or a rainy load/unload day.

5. Clean the piece

Make sure to have furniture as clean and polished as you can going into the unit. Any stains a sofa might have now won’t magically disappear after being in a storage unit. Get rid of them now. Treat any wood work with proper products before putting it in storage. Lastly, dust off any furniture items once they are safely loaded into your unit. The more you repel dirt, the better.

Furniture often ends up being a long term investment so you want to take care of while it is being stored. Do specific research on ways to store certain antique pieces and more valuable items. The list above is a generic list to help you get started with the furniture storage process.